![](\"https:\/\/photos.smugmug.com\/Bikes\/2016-Bike-racing\/i-KGTZRGC\/0\/X2\/IMG_8283-01-X2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFor the last couple of years I’ve raced the Salty Dog* in a pair. This year I was worried about my knee, and rather than risking letting down a team mate, I decided to just sign up solo again.<\/p>\n
I was really looking forward to the drive all the way back out to Salmon Arm after we just drove back from Squamish six days earlier (Note – I was not actually looking forward to this). But at least I had a road trip buddy! Kat and I were racing in the same category, as I had managed to convince her to sign up for the race without her actually realising what she was signing up for (she trusts me?)<\/p>\n
We’d arrived in Salmon Arm, checked into the Podollan (because we were being fancy, and not camping for once), and were cleaning our bikes. And that was when I realised the back wheel was wiggling about in a way that didn’t seem good to me. <\/p>\n
I borrowed a cluster tool from some of the other Salty Dog racers milling about the place, it failed to help, and Kat phoned up Skookum Cycles for me – they were technically closed, but would try and help me out if we could get there within five minutes. We threw the bike in the van and hurtled downtown.<\/p>\n
The lovely bike mechanic dismantled my wheel, said something about some threads being a bit stripped, cleaned it out and re-assembled it, saying “It should be good for tomorrow, but you should get it fixed afterwards.” Phew!<\/p>\n
The race summary basically goes: It was warm and dusty, I did seven laps. My rear wheel had been getting a bit loose, and I’d been re-tightening the thru-axle thingy every couple of laps. But on the sixth lap the lever on the thru-axle flew off and I couldn’t find it. I took the descent easy, then had another hunt for the lever on my seventh lap. I still couldn’t find it, and my rear wheel was starting to feel a bit off. My gears were skipping a little. I was remembering that time in Singletrack6 when my wheel actually fell off. <\/p>\n
When I made it back to the tents, I took everything into account, and decided not to try for an eighth lap. I found out afterwards that I’d passed the leader in my category (Sport <40 women) at the top of my last lap, and clinched the victory on the descent. Woo! Meanwhile, Kat had polished off six laps in her first MTB race, ending up in third.\n\n<\/p>\n
This really means that I’ll have to sign up in the Expert instead of Sport class next time I do something like this – although now I’ve finally mastered one-finger breaking, I’m closer to feeling like less of a fraud if I call myself an expert (now, to just master turning with my feet in the right place)<\/p>\n
*Mountain bike race where you ride laps of an 11km course for six hours, commonly ridden by many Canmore folk as a season starter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the last couple of years I’ve raced the Salty Dog* in a pair. This year I was worried about my knee, and rather than risking letting down a team mate, I decided to just sign up solo again. I was really looking forward to the drive all the way back out to Salmon Arm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,24,1,17],"tags":[1487,1531],"class_list":["post-5949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bikes","category-canada","category-general","category-trip-reports","tag-race-report","tag-salty-dog"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"megan","author_link":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/?author=1"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/wordpress\/wp-content\/images\/DSC_0215-X2.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["bikes<\/a>","canada<\/a>","general<\/a>","trip reports<\/a>"],"unlinked":["bikes<\/span>","canada<\/span>","general<\/span>","trip reports<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["race report<\/a>","salty dog<\/a>"],"unlinked":["race report<\/span>","salty dog<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 10 years ago","modified":"Updated 10 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 15.5.2016","modified":"Updated on 20.6.2016"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 15.5.2016 8:44 pm","modified":"Updated on 20.6.2016 9:01 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5949"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5952,"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949\/revisions\/5952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evilmoose.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}